Syria: From all-out repression to armed conflict in Aleppo

Amnesty International
1 August 2012

"The assault by government forces on the city of Aleppo is the culmination of months of a brutal crackdown against dissident voices, Amnesty International said in a new report published today.

The new report All-Out Repression is based on first-hand field investigations by Amnesty International in Aleppo city at the end of May.

It documents how security forces and the notorious government-backed shabiha militias routinely used live fire against peaceful demonstrations, killing and injuring protesters and bystanders, including children, and hunted down the wounded, the medics who treated them, and opposition activists.

“The current onslaught on the city of Aleppo – which puts civilians even more at grave risk– is a predictable development which follows the disturbing pattern of abuses by state forces across the country,” said Donatella Rovera, Senior Crisis Response Adviser at Amnesty International, who recently spent several weeks investigating abuses in northern Syria, including in Aleppo.

The new report provides evidence that families of demonstrators and bystanders shot dead by security forces have been pressured to sign statements saying that their loved ones were killed by “armed terrorist gangs”.

Demonstrations in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and main economic centre, started later and remained smaller than in other main towns.

As the size and frequency of these anti-government protests in Aleppo increased in recent months, the state security apparatus reacted with a characteristically reckless and brutal use of force that inevitably led to peaceful demonstrators being killed and injured.

Those arrested were routinely tortured, threatened and intimidated while in detention.

The report details a wide range of systematic, state-directed violations including the deliberate targeting of peaceful protesters and activists, the hunting down of injured protesters, the routine use of torture, the targeting of medics providing life-saving emergency treatment to the wounded, arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances.

“The peaceful demonstrations I witnessed in different parts of the city invariably ended with security forces firing live rounds at peaceful protesters, their reckless and indiscriminate shooting often killing or injuring bystanders as well as demonstrators,” said Donatella Rovera......"

Click Here to Download Report (pdf)